fraternity made solemn oath to De Cordes, as general, and to each other,
that "by no danger, no necessity, nor by the fear of death, would they
ever be moved to undertake anything prejudicial to their honour, to, the
welfare of the fatherland, or to the success of the enterprise in which
they were engaged; pledging themselves to stake their lives in order,
consistently with honour, to inflict every possible damage on the
hereditary enemy, and to plant the banner of Holland in all those
territories whence the King of Spain gathered the treasures with which he
had carried on this perpetual war against the Netherlands."

Thus was instituted on the desolate shores of Fire Land the order of
Knights of the Unchained Lion, with such rude solemnities as were
possible in those solitudes. The harbour where the fleet was anchored
was called the Chevaliers' Bay, but it would be in vain to look on modern
maps for that heroic appellation. Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego
know the honest knights of the Unchained Lion no more; yet to an
unsophisticated mind no stately brotherhood of sovereigns and patricians
seems more thoroughly inspired with the spirit of Christian chivalry than
were those weather-beaten adventurers. The reefs and whirlwinds of
unknown seas, polar cold, Patagonian giants, Spanish cruisers, a thousand
real or fabulous dangers environed them. Their provisions were already
running near exhaustion; and they were feeding on raw seal-flesh, on
snails and mussels, and on whatever the barren rocks and niggard seas
would supply, to save them from absolutely perishing, but they held their
resolve to maintain their honour unsullied, to be true to each other and
to the republic, and to circumnavigate the globe to seek the proud enemy
of their fatherland on every sea, and to do battle with him in every
corner of the earth. The world had already seen, and was still to see,
how nobly Netherlanders could keep their own. Meantime disaster on
disaster descended on this unfortunate expedition. One ship after